Method of producing aromatized butter by cooling rich cream, and product thereof



Patented Nov. 7, 1950 METHOD OF PRODUCING AROMATIZED BUTTER BY COOLINGRICH CREAM, AND PRODUCT THEREOF Alf Lennart Stigen, Stockholm, Sweden,assignor to Aktiebolaget Separator, Stockholm, Sweden, a corporation ofSweden No Drawing. Application August 17, 1948, Serial No; 44,794. InSweden August 20, 1947 6 Claims.

It is known in the art to produce an aromatized butter by adding anaromatizing liquid to cream of high fat content and then to convert thecream into butter by cooling, as disclosed in Lindgren Patent No.2,461,117, dated February 8, 1949, and Bang application Serial No.573,142, filed January 16, 1945. Butter produced in this way has not,however, as good keeping qualities as ordinary inoculated butterproduced by churning. In this respect, butter of the first-mentionedkind is inferior to ordinary butter although the content of bacteria islower in the first-mentioned kind of butter.

The present invention relates to a process of making aromatized butterwith good keeping qualities without having to use antioxidizing agents,which heretofore were regarded as necessary in order to give to butter,produced by cooling rich cream, those properties required when thebutter has to be stored for some considerable time without therebynoticeably deteriorating. The invention is based upon the observationthat the more rapid change occurring in butter produced by cooling richcream is caused by the exceptionally large contact surface between themoisture droplets and the butter fat, and because the concentration ofthe hydrogen ions in the moisture has been reduced to a value which isfavorable for the chemical processes causing the deterioration.

Between butter produced by cooling rich cream and ordinary butter thereexists a difference in texture. In the latter, the droplets are workedinto the butter during the churning operation. How finely the moistureis comminuted in the butter depends to a high extent on the degree ofworking. A butter of this kind contains moisture droplets of widelyvarying size. This is not the case with butter produced by cooling richcream. In cream the milk serum constitutes the continuous phase which isfairly uniformly distributed in the cream. During the phase conversionof the rich cream, the continuous phase is divided into droplets ofapproximately the same size, practically all of which are smaller thanthe smallest moisture droplets in worked butter. This texture causes thecontact surface between the moisture droplets and the butter fat to bemany times larger in butter of this type than in ordinary butter.

According to the present invention, an aromatized butter with goodkeeping qualities is produced by admixing the aromatics in the form of acoarsely dispersed suspension. This suspension is introduced at such astage in the process as to be included in the final product, that. is,before, during or after the cooling of the rich cream. In this manner, abutter is obtained which contains moisture droplets of two differentkinds. As before, a great number of small moisture droplets areproduced, these being formed during the phase conversion of theuniformly distributed liquid phase of the cream. The liquid admixed in acoarsely dispersed form, which contains the butter aromatic, will on thecontrary be in the form of moisture droplets of a size comparable withthat found in ordinary butter. The small liquid droplets consistessentially of pure milk serum, since they have only to a small extentcome into contact with the aromatizing liquid. The aromatized coarselydispersed liquid droplets contain. the major part of the addedaromatics. The con centration of the aromatics is thus substantiallyhigher than What it would have been if these droplets had beendistributed in the whole liquid content of the butter. This fact doesnot, however, mean any substantial increase of the chemical changesoccurring in the part of the butter which is nearest to the aromatizeddroplets. It has been found that the chemical changes no doubt increasewith the concentration of the hydrogen ions, but after the concentrationhas reached a certain value, the rate of the change is not substantiallyincreased.

In spite of the fact that the aromatics only occur in a small part ofthe liquid contained in the butter, this does not entail a reduction ofits influence on the flavor, obviously because only a limited number ofdroplets come into contact with the gustatory papillas.

When the cooling is effected without any considerable agitation, it ispossible to add the butter aromatics prior to the phase conversion orwhen the phase conversion has started; but in case a cooler withpowerful agitation during the cooling is used, it may be necessary toadd the aromatics after the major part of the cream has been convertedinto butter. The aromatics may then be added either in the cooleritself, at the outlet of the cooler, or in an apparatus connected to thecooler, after the entirely or partly converted cream has reached thedesired final temperature.

An additional improvement may be obtained by the following procedure:First, an uninoculated butter is produced by cooling rich cream. Thisbutter is stored. Before it is packaged, a liquid is worked into itwhich contains the butter aromatics and preferably also salt. In thismanner a butter of the very best quality is obtained. Experience hasshown that sweet butter, in which ably in tWo stages.

*sistence of the finished butter.

the hydrogen ion concentration of the moisture droplets corresponds tothat of the milk, is not subject to chemical changes even during storingover long periods, provided that the cream from which the butter isproduced is sterilized.

When the aromatic is mixed with the butter at the time it is packaged inpieces suitable for distribution, the butter fat will only for a shorttime be in contact with the moisture at a concentration of the hydrogenions which is favorable for chemical transformation. Moreover, butterproduced by cooling rich cream has a property which is important forthis procedure.

As previously mentioned, ordinary butter must be worked with a view tofinely comminuting the butter moisture. At the same time, butter oil ispressed out of the fat globules, which consists of unsaturated butterfats with a low solidification point. The amount Of butter oildetermines the consistency of the butter. At certain times of the yearit is necessary to discontinue the working operation as soon as themoisture droplets have reached such a size that the butter does not giveoff free moisture on being stored. If the working were continued, abutter with too soft a consistency would be obtained. If the proceduredescribed above were applied to ordinary worked butter, that is to say,if the aromatizing liquid were worked into it, the butter wouldof'course acquire an unsuitable soft consistency.

Butter. produced by cooling rich cream contains, at the phaseconversion, relatively small amounts of butter oil which encloses thefat globules in the form of a continuous phase. Such butter may verywell be stored without giving off moisture, since it contains only smallliquid droplets and must often, in order to facilitate the packaging, besubjected to mechanical working which increases the continuous phase.This working may advantageously be carried out after the butter has beenstored for a long time and in conjunction with the addition ofaromatizing liquid. The working may be more intense and the admixedliquid may be more evenly distributed than is possible if the mechanicalworking of the butter is effected immediately after the phaseconversion, because when the butter leaves the cooler, thecrystallization Of the butter fat in the fat globules has not proceededas far as would be desirable. sides crystals, large amounts of fluidbutter fat which partly consists of the unsaturated fats and partly ofcrystallizing butter fat, dissolved in the unsaturated fats. If such aproduct is subjected to powerful mechanical working, which is necessaryto finely comminute the liquid, there is a risk that in many cases abutter having too large a continuous phase is obtained, which willentail-a soft consistency and a tendency to give sit the butter oil atroom temperature.

be as follows.

Highly concentrated cream with a fat content approximately the same asthat of the finished butter is obtained by centrifugal separation, suit-This cream is passed in a continuous process to and through a coolingdevice in which, by cooling, the phase conversion is effected. Duringthe passage through the cooling device the material is also subjected toa certain mechanical working which is necessary,

"partly, to overcome the flow resistance and,

partly, for obtaining the desired texture and con The fat globules stillcontain, be-

The aromatizprocess at which the said substance is to be added thusdepends upon the degree of mechanical working to which the mass issubjected after the adding of the-aromatizing substance, which degree,as said above, is determined among other factors by the desired textureof the finished butter. It shouldbe observed that the size of the serumdroplets formed at the phase conversion mainly depends upon how this isperformed i. e. upon the cooling procedure whereas the size of theliquid droplets which are formed. from the added aromatizing substancemainly depends upon the degree of mechanical working to which the massis subjected after the addition of the aromatizing substance and to acertain extent 'also upon at which stage of the process the aromatizingsubstance is added. It is mainly this difference which explains that thearomatizing substance can be mixed with the butter in such a way that itforms coarse droplets in the butter. It will be evident from the abovethat the stage at which the aromatizing substance is to be added must beascertained by trials in each particular case.

The finished butter is withdrawn from the cooling device in liquid statedirectly into suitable packages. If salted butter is desired, salt maysuitably be added in a container arranged between the separator plantand the cooling device through which container the cream passes. Thesalt may also be added together with the aromatizing substance.

I claim;

1. In the process of producing an aromatized butter having good keepingqualities, in which but-ter fat contained in rich cream is convertedfrom a dispersed phase to a continuous phase by cooling the cream,thereby forming from the continuous liquid phase of the cream moisturedrop- 1 lets of smaller size than the moisture droplets in butterobtained by'working the butter fat to effect the phase conversion, andin which aromatics are introduced into the material being processed atsuch a stage of the process as to be included in the final product, theimprovement which comprises mixing with said material the aromaticsindroplets more coarsely dispersed and which the aromatics are so mixedby mechanical working of the butter after it has been storedfollowingsaid phase'conversion. I

4. A butter product containing aromatics and obtained by cooling richcream to effect the phase conversion into butter, said product beingchar- "acterized by its inclusion of finely dispersedandcomminuted'moisture droplets formed from the continuousliquid phase ofthe cream, and also 5 by its inclusion of moisture droplets of largersize and more coarsely dispersed than said first droplets and containingthe major part of the aromatics.

5. The improvement according to claim 1, in which the aromatics are somixed in droplets of the size of the moisture droplets in butterobtained by working the butter fat to obtain the phase conversion.

6. The process of producing aromatized butter having good keepingqualities, which comprises concentrating cream to a fat contentsubstantially equal to that desired in the final butter, rapidly coolingthe concentrated cream to effect a phase conversion in which the fat isconverted from a dispersed phase to a continuous phase, whereby themoisture droplets in the resulting butter are of smaller and moreuniform size than the moisture droplets in butter produced by workingthe fat to eifect the phase conversion, and mixing with the material,after said phase conversion, aromatic droplets more coarsely dispersedand of larger size than said first moisture droplets, whereby the finalbutter product contains finely dispersed and comminuted moisturedroplets formed, in said phase conversion, from the continuous liquidphase of the cream, and also contains larger and more coarsely dispersedmoisture droplets which, after the phase conversion, include the majorpart of the aromatics.

ALF LENNART STIGEN.

REFERENCES CITED The following references are of record in the file ofthis patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS OTHER REFERENCES Treatment and Transformation ofMilk, Improvement of Quality. The Aroma of Butter, by W. Mohr, J. DairyService, November 1938, pp. 288-289.

Diacetyl in Butter, by W. L. Davies, pages 346-348, October 1933, ed. ofFood Manufacture.

1. IN THE PROCESS OF PRODUCING AN AROMATIZED BUTTER HAVING GOOD KEEPINGQUALITIES, AN AROMATIZED BUTTER HAVING GOOD KEEPING QUALITIES, IN WHICHBUTTER FAT CONTAINED IN RICH CREAM IS CONVERTED FROM A DISPERSED PHASETO A CONTINUOUS PHASE BY COOLING THE CREAM, THEREBY FORMING FROM THECONTINUOUS LIQUID PHASE OF THE CREAM MOSITURE DROPLETS OF SMALLER SIZETHAN THE MOSITURE DROPLETS IN BUTTER OBTAINED BY WORKING THE BUTTER FATTO EFFECT THE PHASE CONVERSION, AND IN WHICH AROMATICS ARE INTRODUCEDINTO THE MATERIAL BEING PROCESSED AT SUCH A STAGE OF THE PROCESS AS TOBE INCLUDED IN THE FINAL PRODUCT, THE IMPROVEMENT WHICH COMPRISES MIXINGWITH SAID MATERIAL THE AROMATICS IN DROPLETS MORE COARSELY DISPERSED ANDOF A LARGER SIZE THAN SAID FIRST MOISTURE DROPLETS, WHEREBY THE FINALBUTTER PRODUCT CONTAINS FINELY DISPERSED AND COMMINUTED MOSITUREDROPLETS FORMED, IN SAID PHASE CONVERSION, FROM THE CONTINUOUS LIQUIDPHASE OF THE CREAM, AND ALSO CONTAINS LARGER AND MORE COARSELY DISPERSEDMOSITURE DROPLETS WHICH, AFTER THE PHASE CONVERSION, INCLUDE THE MAJORPART OF THE AROMATICS.